It’s been an incredible first year for WooCommerce. We’ve already accumulated close to 350,000 downloads, have 100+ extensions and 24 official themes, as well as boasting loads more huge accolades.
To celebrate we’ve put together an animated info-graphic (designed by the awesome Studio Muti) with all the interesting stats, which we strongly recommend you check out. We’ve also discounted all our themes and extensions for the week in celebration. Get shopping for themes and extensions now (the discounts have already been applied on checkout).
View the WooCommerce infographicOffer valid until midnight (UTC time) on Friday, September 28th 2012.
Downtime this weekend
Behind the scenes the WooCrew have been hugely busy working on a top secret project, re-building WooThemes from the ground up. We’ll finally be moving our user management and e-commerce system to WooCommerce.
This will hopefully assure you that WooCommerce is the ideal tool even for a company with a userbase of nearly 300,000 users!
Expect downtime this weekend as we move to the new system and push the re-design live. That’s right, we’ve re-designed the entire site!
Important information about extension licensing
With the new system we push live we’ll also be introducing a licensing system for WooCommerce extensions. The extension will function perfectly without a license, but you’ll need to buy extension license keys for each site you use the extension on should you want support and future updates for that site. This is a carefully planned strategy to accommodate our users the best we can in terms of premium support and it’s future scaling.
Hopefully that’s enough reasons to take advantage of our birthday promotion!
We will be informing all users of the promotion, licensing and downtime via email so no one is left in the dark.
About
Happy birthday WooCommerce, it has been an absolute fantastic journey for ourselves too and to see it grow like this is the best feeling in the world!
An incredible year indeed!
Happy Birthday WooCommerce.
You are still so young and excited for another year of exponential growth in the WordPress eCommerce ecosystem.
Can’t believe it’s already one year! Well done, Mike and Coen!
*cough* 😀
You sir, deserve special praise 😀
I knew you were saving a special comment just for me <3
good news! and congratz
I was about to shop some plugins this weekend, glad I did not! 🙂
However it seems to me the Shipping Table rate plugin is seriously upping its price lately? Am I wrong?
What does this mean?
« Going forward you’ll need to buy extension license keys for each site you use the extension on. »
How will this pricing structure work? Makes me nervous as we build a ton of sites and this could greatly increase our costs if for every site and every woo plugin we use we need to purchase an additional license.
Hi Blake,
The new license plan will have three pricing levels depending on how many sites you wish to use the extension on, so unlimited usage will carry a higher price than it does today.
Good to know.
And also, while moving to this model makes sense from needing to scale support, the larger web shops while they may build more sites that use a plugin, also hopefully they know what they are doing more-so than the average user.
I assume this will be better for the plugin authors as well?
Yes this benefits the plugin authors directly too.
I’ve wondered why that hasn’t been the case and I think it’s a fine idea.
Agreed! What’s the score with this??
Congratulations guys! It’s been a great show!
We’ve enjoyed building plugins for WooCommerce.
Let me think up something special to celebrate the first birthday as well 🙂
Keep ’em coming in! 😛
Congrat on 1 year for WooCommerce! Keep up the great work!
However (sorry), I have to say, I’m a bit concerned about the new licensing for extensions for a couple of reasons.
1. There are pretty much no live examples or demos for extensions (which is odd but a separate matter) and all we get is a pretty short blurb about them in the repository. As a result, I would often buy one just to see if it does what I need it to do, knowing that I could always just keep it and use it for a later project if suitable. The new licensing structure will make me seriously less inclined to do so. This equals potentially less sales for you and more uncertainty and hassle for me.
2. Compared to other repositories, the pricing for extensions is already much higher (e.g. see Code Canyon). This price difference was mitigated by the fact that I had autonomy over how often I used the extensions. Now, I can see myself potentially using Code Canyon more in the future as it simply makes better economic sense, when you consider most author’s over there stand by their products and offer great support which, other than price, is the only other main consideration.
On a broader point, although I still think WooThemes is a fantastic company, thinking back over recent blog post/announcements, WooThemes is making several massive changes, many of which have left your customers feeling a bit alienated i.e. the changes suit WooThemes 1st and the customer base 2nd.
1. I agree demos would be an asset but realistically, setting up individual demos for every single plugin isn’t realistic. It’s not the same as a theme where you just look at the prettyness and make your decision based on that. The majority of extensions involve backend interaction which makes demos more difficult to maintain.
Having said that many of the extensions really do exactly what they say on the tin. Reading the description and documentation really should be enough to demonstrate what they do. There’s not really much more you’d get from a demo in these cases.
2. We’re not really interested in the price points on other web sites. Our concern is making sure our products represent value for money. When it comes to WooCommerce extensions I think it’s well worth paying the extra for the knowledge that the products have been audited by WooCommerce core developers to ensure they’re of the highest quality. Not to mention that you also get access to our support desk which I believe is worth the price on it’s own.
Hi Jay.
Thanks for the reply.
You’ve helped me in the past several times (in the much missed support forums) and have always been helpful but I have to draw significant issue with almost everything you said. I intend what follows to be constructive, so hope it is taken in that way.
I think that the overall issue I (and others) are finding with how WooThemes have changed lately is that it is an « inside-looking-out » view of your company not an « outside-looking-in » view i.e. WooThemes is viewing things its POV and not seeing things from your customers POV. And your reply (unfortunately) highlights this.
1. You guys may think that the descriptions and docs are sufficient but have you ever asked if this is the case for your customers? All you need to do is go to the official WordPress plugin repository to see how much more info, screen shots and DEMOS are offered. Same goes for the likes of Code Canyon (I’ll get to your comments on that in a mo’). You said that there really isn’t much more I’d get from a demo than the description and the docs provide. Clearly there is, as I have found myself buying extensions for the very purpose of finding out sufficiently how they work.
2. « We’re not really interested in the price points on other web sites ». Honestly Jay, that’s a baffling comment and exemplifies the « inside-looking-out » perspective I feel WooThemes has adopted. How can to possibly assess the value for money of your products if you don’t care about what others (read: your competition) are doing? There is much more that can be said about on this point but I leave it at that.
3. « …you also get access to our support desk which I believe is worth the price on it’s own. » Sorry, but I absolutely HATE the new support system. With a passion! I’ve made this point previously on other posts but the the amount of collected knowledge on the support forums (which thankfully is still accessible for the time being)is quite simply impossible for a knowledge base to achieve.
Now, I have to make this clear that my issue is with the new support system NOT the support staff. I can’t stress this enough. Everyone I have dealt with has been friendly and extremely helpful. And as I said above, you definitely fall into that crowd.
Well put David. On the last point I think that what is happening is that the WordPress community culture, which is crystalized by their useful support forums, is at odds with a knowledge base only solution. Part of what makes WordPress a great platform is users helping users.
Early on I think woothemes embraced this but found that users did not always offer each other future proof solutions. Making the suport forum a public interaction with woo ninjas they improved the quality of the support. That being said searching the forum for solutions was tricky since their search function was not well tuned. If the search function had been tuned rather than throwing out the forum approach we would be in a better place.
As you have stated, woothemes employees are great! Really Great! The support approach on the other hand could be complemented by a forum for the self helpers.
I have to agree, the forums were MUCH better for exactly that reason.
Even if the responses were not entirely future-proof, coming from other users, the response time and variety of knowledge outweighed that possibility.
The WT staff, awesome as they are, have not built websites similar to EVERYone else’s website. BUT, there’s probably another user or two that HAVE built sites similar to yours.
Other users are also often willing to take the time to copy their code or help with specific modifications that WT support staff (understandably) cannot dedicate their time to.
I always used to say WT was worth the relatively small price differential, simply because the support system was that awesome.
With a growing price differential, and losing the forums… the benefit’s gone. I still love the WT products I have, and they’re on my list when I get new projects, but I increasingly find myself looking elsewhere.
Hi David,
Glad to hear I’ve helped you in the past.
As I said, creating and maintaining demos for all our extensions is unrealistic and very unlikely to happen. We can push developers to create demos, but it’s subjective as to whether it’s necessary or not. For example we really dont need a demo for a payment gateway. From your comment I understand you’d like to see more screenshots and detailed descriptions on the listing pages? That’s something we can certainly look to address going forwards.
Personally I don’t see CodeCanyon as a direct competitor. Our extensions and themes are built by/audited by the same people who’re building WooCommerce itself. I don’t think that should be under-estimated. It means you can purchase in confidence that all our products will work in harmony and continue to do so through upgrades to each individual product. And if it doesn’t, let us know and we’ll fix it right away.
It may be a bad analogy but it’s like buying a car from an authorised dealership vs a private purchase. You pay extra to get the car from the dealership but you also get peace of mind that if something goes wrong it’ll be under warranty and they’ll fix it for you. If something goes wrong with your privately purchased car, you’re on your own*. It all depends on which kind of customer you are I guess, but then that’s why there’s two markets.
I’m sorry to hear that you don’t like the new support system. But I can assure you that feedback as not fallen on deaf ears.
* I’m not saying all CodeCanyon authors are bad or don’t offer support. But there’s no obligation so you’re always taking a risk.
I have to agree on the documentation. It has gotten better as of late, but I think it could be dramatically improved. Screen cast videos, better images, more paragraphs on the features etc. It should just be mandatory.
The new support is also a little strange, but personally I don’t know how you managed to keep up with it all using the forum version. So if it has to be uservoice so be it.
As for codecanyon, I’m not saying anything bad about the developers there but I would much rather buy the extensions here at WooThemes. Just not that happy about the price increase as I do maintain many ecommerce sites. Hopefully the unlimited license is relatively reasonable.
David and Peter, I am 100% with you. I feel the same and I agree.
Jay helped me as well, so it’s not about him, it’s about the « new » moves.
Who makes the decision(s)?
1) I don’t like this new support system, there was no need to « kill » the community. Why? don’t even answer — I won’t agree. Period.
2) The new extension licensing, another bad move. No need for explanations.
I was using WP eStore before, and if I new about 1) and 2) a month ago, I wouldn’t have switched to Woocommerce last week.
Especially when Jay told me via email, during my pre-sales questions: « that, we will be able to help in our support forum… » — something like that.
Guess what? One of my first reply via the new ticket system was like so:
« consider hiring a Woo developer, and the CLASSIC — this is beyond the scope of our support — please read our policy… « . But you know what? I got annoyed, and after 3 x emails, eventually, I was told that what I asked was possible. No need for extra code, no need o hire a Woo ninja.
How do you expect me to feel good about this? Now I am reading about the new extension license…
That’s some pure and honest customer feedback.
I have to kindly say, today, I feel like I have been « grabbed by the balls ».
God knows what’s coming next.
@Louis – That is why we have a Support Policy. Unfortunately we can’t run our business sustainably, if we end up providing all of the code for massive customization projects built on our products.
@Adii, I am not sure you understood what I said?
There was no need to hire a developer and there was NO massive customisation at all… no extra coding needed. Period.
I didn’t even ask for customisations, my questions were about the extension, and how to do x, y, x.
First I was advised to hired a Woo ninja.
Than I was told different
It is the SECOND time I going through this.
It’s ok, no worries — it was expected — what do you expect from a « close » ticket support system?
This wouldn’t have happen in the forum.
Hi david,
I have been toying with the idea of setting up a wikeasi for a users knowledge base on woohq.com
do u think that might be of interest?
Hi Mark.
I think that although there would need to be some fleshing out of how it would best be set up, it certainly -in principal-, is a move in the right direction and that is more answers to more questions accessed quickly.
Good idea.
Hi again David,
thanks for your reply, any thoughts on the best way to work it appreciated 😉
regards
Hear hear
Congratulations to the Woo team! You guys rock.
How you guys keep changing rules (extensions) and slipping these in with an announcement like this is not satisfactory.
I am getting a little tired at this treatment, especially as i now have hundreds of clients using these themes.
This is barely « slipping it in ». Instead we’re providing a week’s worth of forewarning that the pricing will change. Once the new pricing goes live, we’ll speak about that specifically & in more detail.
What was major thrust of this release?
What has a bigger impact on your loyal members, your first birthday? Or….
Increasing prices dramatically for current loyal members who have contributed to woo commerce’s success?
Slipped in it was!
I am concerned about the new extensions license structure as well. Could make a big different to existing and new clients, as well as our e-commerce business model!
I understand however that support is very important and if this change means we are getting very timely support both for technical issues and helping us customise and extend the system then I welcome it, as long as it’s not extortionate of course.
Please let us know
1. What will the license costs be? you mentioned three pricing levels.
2. You say extensions bought before the new structure goes in to place will still be able to be used on unlimited sites. Will those of us who have bought the extensions pre license structure still get full support for the extensions, for the live of the product and get updates to extensions free? I bought extensions based on this belief so would be a bit miffed if that is not the case.
Thanks
Hi Tai,
1. We’ll disclose the pricing on launch.
2. Yes, you’ll get full support, and can use the extensions just as you do now on unlimited sites.
I sure hope you guys are not planning on a subscription plan where I’d have to pay some $ per month on every site e-commerce is used and even more if an extension is used.
That would be a very bad move and I’m sure many currently « loyal » customers will abandon woothemes.
I personally do not mind paying a one time license fee (like « purchasing » quality software), but recurring expenses are a huge red flag.
I think you are misunderstanding… There will be no subscription or recurring billing on extensions.
Just try to buy two extension but i had enough first you charge me 53 instead of 35 for one. After that it said 24 for Discount for review and when you check out it said 25. I bought it anyway and i sent you and email to support@woo with screen shoots you been great in the past but this is a mess.
If the price was $53 then the original price was $75 for this extension.
The 1 dollar more on checkout is just a rounding error, since $35*0.7 is $24.5, which rounds up to $25. It is the price on the website which is wrong.
As your moving our website over to WooCommerce for the store – does this mean that you will enable users to purchase items/subscriptions via PayPal?
I’m fraid we still don’t have plans to use PayPal, due to their terms and policies.
That’s disappointing. As someone without a credit card you would have a lot more on my money if I didn’t have to buy pre-paid cards every time I make a purchase.
If you contact us via our contact page, we can do a manual payment via PayPal, to save you the hassle of doing that.
I appreciate the offer but last time I did that it took 4 days and a whole lot of hassle to complete. Not to mention the headache of broken woocommerce plugins after that.
Magnus,
While I don’t agree with many of Paypal’s terms and conditions, especially the ones that result in near random holds on funds (especially if you’re non-US based), I still take paypal because my paypal total intake is low enough to be under the radar.
Stripe, on the other hand, takes in considerable income and I’m glad that WooCommerce supported Stripe and continues to do so through the plugin author.
However, if you guys are doing manual PayPal payments, doesn’t this undermine the entire « we don’t take PayPal » thing? I chose to accept PayPal because even though I don’t like their terms and conditions, my business case still requires that people pay with their preferred payment method.
If I turned off PayPal, it would be off — period, and no « manual payments » would be allowed. If I was not based in the United States, I’d have PayPal turned off and the functionality in core WooCommerce overrode just in case.
Being based out of South Africa, we’ve had PayPal put a hold on funds for no reason before, and that didn’t work for us as a business. We do manual if the user has no other means of paying.
« …don’t have plans to use PayPal, due to their terms and policies »
I knew it. It was all about Paypal ‘s policy and terms…
Well, thanks for being honest about it.
One user’s perspective:
I don’t understand how unlimited usage (mentioned in the comments) works with having to buy a license for each site (as mentioned in the post). That alone – the act of having to buy a license for every extension for every site – increases the time we have to spend (buying, accounting, etc) and therefore the cost of extensions. We don’t need support necessarily, so there’s no value for us there. However, we don’t mind paying more – just registering each site.
For what it’s worth, we used ExpressionEngine for years and one of the reasons we moved to WordPress was because we became exhausted from buying tons of little extensions, licensing each one, etc. Some of those addon developers are moving toward unlimited licensing, rather than requiring registering each site.
Hi Bud,
No if you buy an unlimited license, you’ll get 1 license key for that extension, which you use on all your sites.
Whew, thanks for that. Wasn’t clear to me from the blog post, but quite glad to know it.
Ah this is starting to make sense. So one of the options will still allow for unlimited use?
So basically you can be at a more expensive level that gives you the unlimited level we enjoy now or two lower levels for fewer sites?
I understand that this info will be released soon but I think the vagueness of the mention to this in the post is causing some worry.
I trust you guys and know that whatever results will be better.
Yes one of the license tiers options is a multi-user license, which will come at a higher price than the other tiers.
We are letting you know about this change, so that you still have the opportunity to make use of the sale to get the extensions at 30% off and multi-use.
Question: Are you using the stock License Keys extension with WooCommerce, then building in the license key server check that comes with the extension?
If so, this may actually be a very good use case as to the License Keys extension’s worth, and perhaps you could do a 3 month later blog post about how its working out for you.
I just purchased some themes this last Friday…how can I get 30% back?
E-mail us and we can potentially make a plan. 🙂
Yeah not sure about this promotion. When I go to purchase this extension for Per Product Shipping, on the product page it says it’s $24 and then on the order page, not only does it *not* automatically give me this 30% discount but it actually ups the price to $25 ?!? Any help?
+1 No discount automatically applied in the shopping cart. I too am seeing prices go from $24 up to $25 when I click « buy now »
Also, totally annoying that i can’t purchase multiple extensions at once, I have 7 or 8 I want to buy and I don’t see any way to add them all to my cart at once.
Novel idea for you, use wooCommerce to power your wooCommerce extension store, then we could have a proper shopping cart! 🙂
We’re going live with a new version of WooThemes.com soon, which will be powered by WooCommerce. 🙂
The $25 price is the correct price (already discounted) and the $24 is due to a rounding error.
If you’d like to purchase multiple extensions, please e-mail us and we’ll make a plan for you.
Well,Adii,I’m writing hoping this time you may do something for me.
Last time when 40% discount was going on I tried to purchase almost 12 extensions but everytime I try to do so I was getting error so I had mailed support with the list fo extensions I wanted to purchase before the promotion ends asking for help so that I can avail the offer but nobody ever got back to me till date:(
Since then I have been checking woothemes blog for a second promotion chance and today when you got one I tried to purchase again and still getting the same error.
I tried my card,my bros card and my moms card..all failed:(..even tried by creating a new account.So again shoot an email to support and dunno…!I would really like to purchase at least 15/20 extensions for my new Woocommerce site,can you get me a plan for me too please?
Many thanks in advance.Have a great day!
Please contact us directly at info@woocommerce.com and we’ll whitelist your creditcard.
Hi,I have emailed.
thanks for your support.
Happy Birthday, Woothemes! Thanks for great things You do!
Sorry but I’ll have to second the previous posters’ lack of enthusiasm regarding your price strategy change, soon to be landed on us.
I bought a premium theme a bit more than 7-8 months ago and was entitled to choose 2 more themes for free. Not only that couldn’t preview them/choose them using my account’s dashboard, my help request wasn’t answer at all…
Hi Daniel,
The new pricing is only for WC extensions, not for themes.
I’m sorry if your support request wasn’t answered, could you please try contacting us again?
@Magnus:
« The new pricing is only for WC extensions, not for themes »
What about « WordPress Plugins »?
Yes, WooCommerce, WooDojo and WooSidebars are FREE but WooSliders is a PAID plugin.
It even has an extension to be WooCommerce compatible?
Yes our paid WP plugins like WooSlider will also go over to the tiered licensing model later on, as mentioned before.
The WC extension for WooSlider will have the tiered licensing.
Happy Birthday guys and thanks for the discount!
I’ve been trying to purchase a number of extensions this week. Your ‘basket’ only allows one item at a time, and when I try to purchase another item immediately afterwards, rejects my card, and I have to wait ages to purchase anything else. Hence I haven’t purchased the items I’d like to!
In addition, my club membership has ‘expired’ again. I’m assuming it has to do with the changes on your website, as I just used the same card to make a purchase elsewhere with no problems. Before you ask, I’ve raised a ticket. The thing is, I already had an open ticket about something else, and I’ve no idea whether your system views that as bumping or not.
Which brings me to another question. You used to have a ‘panic’ button. I never needed it, but it was good to know there was a way to escalate issues. If raising more tickets, adding extra information to an existing ticket or raising a new one is ‘bumping’, how do we actually get through to someone when we do need to escalate things?
Just hit the panic button and we’ll help you out with multiple purchases. All e-mails sent via info@woocommerce.com or our contact page are answered within 24 hours, usaully shorter.
Multiple products is one of the things WooCommerce will finally solve on our site.
Just wondering, would the license key be required to activate/unlock the extension or will it just serve the purpose of updates and support?
Just updates / support. 🙂
How do you plan to enforce the license model? Will there be a lame license model where users are told not to use an extension on more than a single site (if that license was bought), or will you add some kind of code that actually prevent an extension to function?
Or, will the user not be able to generate more than one API-key (if there is a one-site license in effect) and if the latter is chosen, will there be a need to authenticate with your servers? The latter is very important since that is a potential hole for evil-doers?
An other change that I think greatly benefits WooThemes not the users. Just on my past billing cycle (Aug 22 – Sept 22) I never received a new theme. So the new 1 theme a month approach has really benefited me how? Can’t see this licencing approach working for anyone other that WooThemes and the plugin devs.
PS I want a refund for my past months payment –
« *****During your membership*** you will receive:…
Minimum 1 new theme per month »
Did not happen during my Aug to September billing period.
Hi,
We release one theme a month, but that might not always fall inside your billing month. We use the calendar month e.g. 1-31st.
This months theme is coming up this week.
Your policy didn’t help me the one month I had the membership. Thanks for nothing. Guess I will call Visa for that refund then
On further reading of past blog posts I get your point. That makes more sense now.
No refund required.
Customer threatens chargeback for not comprehending how the calendar month works? Sounds like this customer needs identified and WooThemes needs to ban them from doing business.
I know I would, chargebacks are serious business and at the mere mention of one over something that is user comprehension error, I’ll drop that person before they cost me money.
Nathan,
You are are right
.
I guess I was stupid to think that if I « Started » my membership on Aug 22 and it ended September 21/22 I would have seen a theme during that one and only month / billing period I had paid for a membership.
But I realized I made the mistake of « not timing it right » and « not reading the really fine print. »
My fault – I apologised publicly to WooThemes for my error in not timing it right. I even apologised in an e-mail to them too.
But I have to ask;
Think you would be happy if you paid for one month to try it out – didn’t time it right and got no new theme in return?
My fault I guess for being dumb and not timing it perfectly.
Chargebacks are a legal consumer protection and not a stick for arrogant staff to beat their customers with when they’ve already noticed their error and apologised in public.
At least now we know what you really think of your customers, so thanks for that.
And Happy birthday by the way.
Leon
I forgot to mention to Nathan that here in Canada – as in the UK and France we are on the metric system. And that always messes me up when trying to figure out how the months work compared to the US. With February, March and April now being Farch that really messes things up for me. The one plus is I haven’t had a legal birthday since 1972.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar#Calendar_design
I apologise. On further reading of past blog posts I get your point. That makes more sense now.
No refund required. Thanks
No problem. 😉
And remember, that when you subscribed initially, you immediately got access to 100-odd themes.
I have a few thoughts on the pricing change, some negative, and some positive.
For users/customers:
1. If you’re angry about the price change, my first thought is « get over it ». There is absolutely nothing obscene about having a separate license for each site, especially not when there is an option to purchase a multi/unlimited-site license. If you’re complaining because it’s more accounting or additional costs for your business, then I’d encourage you to look at your business model. If paying for a $20-$60 extension breaks the budget for a project, when you’re already getting literally thousands and thousands of dev hours for free by using WooCommerce, then please take a step back and consider what you’re really saying.
2. If you’re unhappy about the change, I’m actually completely with you, just for a different reason that in number 1. I personally really, really do not like the licensing change because actively restricting the use of software is one of the things I despise most. I personally do not feel a WP plugin (including extensions for plugins) should ever, ever be limited in their use. Purchasing a license means unlimited use. Period. Part of this is because of the GPL licensing that WordPress is licensing under, which means that all plugins are also GPL.
For Woo:
1. I completely agree with the pricing change in regards to support management. With the number of users that WooCommerce has, the support is huge, and by allowing unlimited extension usage with a single purchase only exacerbates the amount of support. By requiring that users purchase a license for each site, you dramatically help to mitigate the support burden, or at least help to supplement the cost of providing the support.
2. I 100% disagree with the way the license restriction is put in place. The number of sites an extension can be used on should NEVER be limited. It’s part of the GPL. Instead what you should do (in my mind) is provide two services to sites with a valid license:
a. auto updates (I don’t think you have this yet)
b. support access for that site
Getting access to automatic upgrades is definitely enough reason for me to purchase a license for each site.
Getting support access for the site I’m using the license on is also enough reason to purchase an additional license.
Users should NOT be forced to purchase a license for each site, but they SHOULD be encouraged to do so in order to gain the benefits of A and B.
This is exactly what I was thinking. But because the description of the licensing model is so vague, I decided to ask for clarification.
If they plan on restricting activation of an extension because of a single site license, then that is definitely not a GPL practice. But if the license key is only required for support and updates, then I’m cool with it 🙂
Coen Jacobs and Mike Jolley have just clarified clarified this a bit for me on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/pippinsplugins/status/250255701203623936
Glad to see the clarification.
Good to know.
@Pippin – RE: #2, that is exactly the case. We will never prevent the extension code from functioning, but will limit support / updates to registered sites.
This is exactly how large scale open source based companies do things, GPL code and paid support. I see no problem with this.
I do wonder how one will get support in the future, though. Will we input the domain of the support case, or the license key itself?
When you activate an extension with your license, the domain is mapped, and this is tied to your user on our site. So we’ll see it 🙂
I think automatic upgrades should be included without the additional licenses, only because of the security implications that come from running outdated software. It’s a disservice to the internet community, and likely a PR issue for Woo in the future when someone gets hacked « through a hole in WooCommerce ». Nobody hears « it was an old version ». They hear « WooCommerce ».
+1
I don’t want or expect free tech support, but any updates to extensions that are security related, or needed to enable an extension to keep working with future versions of WP or a parent WP theme, should be free to anyone who has purchased any extension.
Updates are free if you’ve bought the extensions. You just need to add your license key to receive the update.
Agreed.
When a big outage happened earlier this year to a really big web host – it was apparent that some of the blame was out-of-date WP plugins…
Other factors at play too but it can start with a small hole in, and that is what was remembered. Not the other issues.
Thank’s for the clarification. License key required for support and updates, not for usage. A good model to ensure quality support. What can we expect from support? Response times etc?
We are always looking to improve response times and would like to get as close as possible to a 6-hour maximum turnaround time on all tickets within the next 6 – 12 months.
Woocommerce and I have the same birthday?
Congratulations sir!
What is the link to order with the 30% discount?
There isn’t any link at all to order..It keeps coming back to the same page over and over again.
I can not order neither any other shopper. It is quite difficult to get to order with the special discount.
There are so many but neither one goes to order with the special offer.
Please fix and indicate clearly for any other visitor where to go order.
Reply to my email: hrayo@yahoo.com
The prices that are currently listed on the website are already discounted and includes the promised 30% discount.
I think you have to clarify this on the extensions’ price sections.
Yes, as an old timer, when I try to buy an extension; I already know that the extension WAS $50, but it is $35 NOW, or it displays $24 because it was $35 before…
But no potential new user will know this difference if they come to your site after seeing the discounts for the first time.
Just put back the REGULAR price and then the 30½ DISCOUNTED Sale Price together to INFORM. That would be much more easier for both WooThemes and the customers.
Another user concerned about the new licensing arrangement.
Posted my concerns here:
http://sitesubscribe.com/blog/woocommerce-changing-extension-licenses-to-charge-per-site/
In all honesty, if you can’t justify the $250 spent on extensions for a client project, then you are either not charging enough or your profit margins are insane. 🙂 $250 for code that « cost » (ito our development time) loads more to develop is a steal and all developers / agencies should be able to budget for that in a client project.
Margins are tight on smaller projects. I think you’re assuming projects in the >$2K range, anything less makes $250 affect margins quite a bit.
Just to be clear — If I buy extensions this week, will they be grandfathered in as if they were unlimited?
Yes 🙂
awesome. this will get me to purchase them now.. thanks!
one more question –
Is the discounted « birthday » price already in the price listed? Or is there a product code that I need to enter to get the discount?
The prices are already discounted on the site. No coupon code needed.
I’m looking to purchase an extension that was previously $50, now it’s $52. When I add it to the cart it shows as $53. When does the 30% kick in?
The price will have been $75 before if it is $52.5 now (is just a rounding issue).
I’m getting the same issue as John, product « Follow Up Emails » showing as $52 (with discount) and when clicking « Buy This Extension » the Checkout Page is now saying $53.
The discounted 30% of $75 is $52.5, which is rounded up to $53. So this is just a rounding error.
As a note to my previous post. This appears to be happening to any Product that I have seen that is listed as $24 or $52. When you click « Buy » they each change to $25 or $53.
This normally wouldn’t be such as issue if it was like 1 or 2 but if you have users planning on purchasing 10+ Extensions that starts to add up.
@Magnus:
The price will have been $75 before if it is $52.5 now (is just a rounding issue).
WHY you have to round the price in the first place?
Make the price accept decimals, so all those 50cents will be displayed properly.
No confusing, no price changes, no rounding errors!
So it is impossible to order with your special offer of 30% in this site?
You should not offer any birthday special offers at all if it is too complicated just to order..
Send the link to place the order..No more bla bla..and go there..here..bla bla.
Make this offer clear to everybody..No more complicated instructions…
Humberto Rayo
email: hrayo@yahoo.com
Responded to your comment above. The prices are already discounted. 😉
I don’t see that there is a 30% discount on membership pricing. I still see $125 start up and $20 monthly.
Thanks. I am a little confused.
The 30% off is only for Extensions and Themes, not for Club membership.
That is soo sad, I was looking out for that.
Congratulations to the woo crew! Great work!
Yay! I have the same birthday as WooCommerce! And on top of that my new company are giving away €10,000 worth of an e-commerce store (built on WooCommerce of course!) and digital marketing!
Some might say that’s a co-incidence worthy of a free lifetime membership 😀
Have you put the extension prices up before applying the discount, I noticed that one that I bought at $30 prior to discount is now $24 with discount applied. This means the plugin had gone up $5, admittedly I purchased the 11 months ago but this is still almost a 17% increase sometime on the last 11 months.
Alright, so I just purchased two extensions and went to buy my third, and am now getting an error message:
« Oops! We have experienced an error processing your transaction. Please contact WooThemes Support for more details or alternatively try a different card. »
I’ve called my CC company, and they said there’s no issues with my card and they’re not showing any declined transactions, so it seems that something is wrong with the checkout process for purchasing extensions. (I’ve since tried several more times, on several other extensions…all getting the same error message.
Exactly same,i’m getting.I’ve contacted Woo support and still waiting to hear from them.I’m trying to purchase since July:(
We have received your mail, and it will be replied to in due time.
Oh,that’s a relief.Should I send you the list of extensions I want to purchase for single payment?Let me know.
thanks
Yes contact us directly by mail via Contact page.
This is happening to me as well. I can usually purchase plugins in 1-2 purchase spurts (using the same CC). Then I get that lovely:
“Oops! We have experienced an error processing your transaction. Please contact WooThemes Support for more details or alternatively try a different card.â€
I know nothing is wrong with my card, and usually if I wait a bit I’m able to purchase again. It’s more than mildly aggravating.
I’ve been trying for several hours now and was only able to get one more transaction to go through…. I’ve been trying to give WooThemes over $200 all afternoon and can’t! 🙂
Will keep trying. Hopefully they figure out what’s happening and fix it or at least post something here to manage expectations for those of us that can’t place orders.
I’m the same. I was just able to get 1 more purchase to go through after my original 2 about an hour ago. Now I’m back to the same message.
Take our monies WooThemes!:P
Yeah hopefully they’ll post something. I have had this issue intermittently over the past several months and I’m not sure if it’s just due to heavy traffic or what.
This is most likely security measures preventing your card from being used multiple times. Contact support directly to setup multiple product purchase, so you only need to pay once.
If you’re trying to make mass purchase like me, might want to watch the pricing.
I posted on this up earlier and am waiting to hear a response but it appears that any of the extensions that are listed as $24 or $52 are respectively changing to $25 and $53 when you click the « Buy » link.
Not really anything major when you’re purchasing 1-2 extensions but can really add up if someone is planning on a large order.
Please contact us directly so we can help you with this. info@woocommerce.com
Just saw your response further up Magnus about the pricing difference being a rounding issue. Thanks for the clarification.
Back to purchasing I go. 🙂
It’s unfortunate that money has become such a driving force at Woo’s. After all, the whole idea behind WP includes accessibility & the low budget aspect.
David is absolutely right about no live examples or demos for extensions. Jay must be tired or something when said:
« Reading the description and documentation really should be enough to demonstrate what they do. There’s not really much more you’d get from a demo in these cases. »
Are you serious? Do you buy anything in this regards without a demo? I don’t. Each project has its own needs and if there isn’t a demo and you accept refund you are asking for more work, not to say trouble.
WHAT IF … woo’s team would take the time now, at its birthday fixing their online issues and customers DE-satisfaction as a great closing period ? That would be a GREAT way to say: YES, WE DO CARE! We are to stay!
As users, we are the ones to ultimately accept (or not) what is being imposed.
We can just keep looking out there. There is always someone waiting for one’s weakness to make their big Entrance worth a look.
Figured someone aside from WooThemes needed to speak up and provide some balance to the anger this has generated.
Elen,
A business can’t operate without money. So that’s not a fair criticism. If they’re not financially viable, then they can’t exist, and I for one, don’t want that to happen as my own business model depends on their success!
Adii and team have done a pretty good job of being transparent as they’ve grown from a tiny one-man shop to one of the biggest businesses in the WP ecosystem. Have they made mistakes? yes, and they’ve largely owned up to them. Easy for customers to sit back and criticize them, but you don’t know all of the variables that need to be taken into account in making these decisions? Are you responsible for determining pricing/policies for a product/service that provide the livelihood for this many employees? Probably not…
No business can keep everyone 100% happy 100% of the time, so keep that in-mind the next time they’re not doing EXACTLY what you want them to do to suit your needs!
Their pricing models, policies, etc. work just fine for me and my business. So while your complains are valid, you don’t speak for all 298,000+ customers. And WooThemes has to balance their decision making to do what’s best for everyone. You can take your $$ elsewhere.
I for one am sticking around because I respect the way these guys operate a business.
Just Sayin’
I think you’ve over-reacted to my comment slightly. I actually agreed that in some cases demos would be a great asset and that we’d endeavour to encourage more of them from our third party developers. But I stand by my statement that you do not need to see a demo of a payment gateway and many other self-explanatory products.
Perhaps you could highlight a couple of extension listings / documentation that you’re not happy with to me via email for us to take a look at? jay[at]woocommerce.com
Just one bit of clarification: does the new pricing structure for the WooCommerce extensions mean that there will no longer be discounts on extensions for WooTheme Club members?
If the Club discounts are being eliminated, this could actually streamline a few things for me, since the Themes Club has not been a productive investment for me.
As long as access to downloading the extensions will remain easy to do from the account dashboards, I’m good with the what the pricing structure may become (if it’ll be similar to what Gravity Forms and a few other premium plugins do… if you don’t renew the license with GF, your forms still work, but you won’t get access to updates until you renew).
I have several clients for whom automatic updates from inside WordPress are problematic and best avoided at all costs, so as long as I could still download an updated WC extensions and manually install it, I have no complaints about that.
The discount for club members still apply. Extensions will work without the license, but you can’t update them, and won’t receive support.
Apologies if I have misunderstood. But can you clarify.
Extensions we have at the moment (or buy before the pricing change comes in) will be grandfathered as Unlimited usage license.
BUT you mention that we will not be able to get updates without renewing the license. Is this correct or am i mistaken?
Thanks
You will receive a license key for all your purchased extensions. So you will get all updates without renewing license. You’ll automatically be grandfathered in as unlimited license.
I haven’t been very happy with some decisions you guys have made as of lately.
1) You get hacked (not your fault entirely, I know), but you lose a bunch of my purchases and we had to go through the trouble to find and restore.
2) Your new theme goal of 2 p/month decreases.
3) You ditch the great support portal you used to have to a less effective email only model, ugh!
4) You retire some great themes (including FaultPress and Chapters, ugh!)
5) You are now making all the woocommerce extensions have individual licenses p/site. Ugh! Ugh!
Your killing us man! I don’t know who is making the decisions over there, but man it’s like you don’t want customers. Please keep your customers in mind.
I understand some of the points, though I might not agree with them. But this licensing thing sugar coated with a sale is just makes me shake my head in disappointment. Keep with the Themeforest/CodeCanyon/App Store like model, purchase once and it’s yours. Updates are free, upgrades (2.0, 3.0, etc) costs. This Gravity Forms/Backup Buddy like model of licenses is the old way and a pain in the butt way for us customers. Make it easy, and keep the customer experience in mind.
You need to purchase stuff from ThemeForest/CodeCanyon once for each time you want to use it, they’re not unlimited licenses…
Hi Jason,
Our business strategy is to make Woo into a sustainable business, so we are here in 10 years time, which is why we’ve made all of the changes you mention. We do always keep the customer in mind, but we also have to make these vital business decisions that might not always please everybody.
We aren’t trying to « sugar coat » the new license model with a sale though, but informing of it beforehand so you aren’t frustrated in a weeks time that you didn’t take advantage of the sale.
The license is the way you describe, where you buy the extensions and it’s yours, and you can do whatever you want with it regardless of which license you buy. But to be able to receive updates and support, you need to register the license key in your extension.
1. When you now move to license keys will it be possible to blend the plugins we previously bought and the plugins our customers now will buy from you directly? In other words we will not register our account for upgrades, the license key will be checked instead and allow keys from different accounts for uppdates?
2. We dont mind letting you have the end user support as long as we get a chance to get some affiliate earnings. Will you create some form of affialiate kickback in the app market plugin so we have a reason not to remove it from every fresh install?
Will licences we have currently purchased by upgradable and receive support?
All current extensions will be unlimited license, so no upgrade required, and you’ll receive support like you do now.
Being based out of South Africa, we’ve had PayPal put a hold on funds for no reason before, and that didn’t work for us as a business. We do manual if the user has no other means of paying.
Yes i asked for that in the support and the Scott from support send me back some Bla bla bla here is the link to THIS page. Thanks for waiting for 4 days for that stupid answer.
Hi Goy, Scott replied with the link to this article because you thought the offer was for subscriptions as well. If you want to pay manually with paypal, please use the « Contact Us » page in the navigation, instead of contacting technical support as they can’t process payments for you. Or mail us directly at info@woocommerce.com
1. Yes you can blend the plugins, meaning you can register your customers key into one extension, and your key into another extension on their site.
2. There isn’t any plans for affiliate functionality as of now I’m afraid.
HBD woocommerce.com 🙂
Thank you and Good luck !
Puspitasari
I only have one site. Will it be cheaper to buy extensions now with 30% off, or later when there is a single-site license available? Thanks!
It will be cheaper to buy with 30% off.
Congratulations Mike, Jay, Coen, WooThemes and the other 62 core contributors.
It’s been a fantastic first year, but the best is yet to come!
Personally, I’m looking forward to making WC the best recurring billing platform on the planet during WC’s 2nd year of life.
I like that plan Brent, full speed ahead! 😛
Hi, I have been following the entire thread it has many interesting points from customers.
Lots of people including me is know forced to buy lots of plugins immediately because of the unlimited sites offer, i would actually buy every single plugin if i could as an investment for future, but this is actually very expensive and the fact that i recently joined woothemes makes it risky.
Could you give us the option to buy some more time, we could pay a small monthly fee to have a the possibility to buy unlimited site licence for the single site price even in the future?
I’m afraid that isn’t an option we offer.
I’m afraid we can’t extend this offer beyond friday.
Simple suggestion for funding future updates with a low upfront costs:
Pay a monthly fee like « 20$ » get all plugins for 1 site without updates included, just so that you can demonstrate plugins for clients and check for compability.
the monthly fee also gives you a 80% discount to buy plugins with updates and support.
You pay 7$ instead of 35$ for a plugin with single licence prize or maybe a lower monthly fee like « 10$ » to get all plugins for the new site?
There should always be an option for small startups to get up and running full featured, instead of having to invest big from the start.
Happy birthday, thanks for the fantastic work guys. Please keep all the goodies coming…
With the new pricing allowing you to offer better support…i really hope that actually happens.
I have just purchased a woocommerce extension that doesn’t appear to do something that would be expected – and i have waited 4 days for a response to my ticket…and still waiting.
That is a lot longer than our usual time, so I’ll make sure it is answered now.
Thanks Magnus…Scott is on the case now.
I use Woocommerce to make my client’s money – lots of money. Do you honestly think that the licence price is expense or unfair? How many times have woo team bailed us out the crap.
Take a good hard look at Shopify and Adobe Business Catalyst – I have both and have a BC Premium Partner account. I have to pay $1500 for a theme – without the ‘toys’ you can get with Woocommerce.
Look, if you make ecommerce website’s for free – the parties over. I intend to push further into WordPress with Wootheme’s vanguard product.
I welcome fast support, better quality plugins and themes. Woothemes have made the right decision for businesses.
Better late than never!
Cart2Cart migration service Team congratulates you with 1 year on eCommerce market! We wish you successful development and fruitful work!
Good luck!
You guys do great work. But, a question — for those of us who have a lot of extensions, I understand they will be grandfathered in and license keys made available. But, will we need to do anything on Monday to existing sites for the currently installed extensions to work or just add the KEYS when we next update the extension or deploy on a new site? My concern is that I just don’t want an existing site to stop working without a KEY. Are we REQUIRED to do anything to keep existing sites working on Monday with current extensions. If so, where can we find out the process to follow? Thanks.
Once you update your extensions you’ll need to add your key. We’ll mention this when they go live next week.
First of all happy birthday and I wish you lots of successful years in business! I have a few of your themes and extensions and I was heading now to purchase some more stuff but it seems that there is no discount applied to any of the items I am interested in! Am I missing something?
We state in the blog post above that the prices are already discounted on our site.
i was wondering the same thing. if the discount is already in the price, then it should say that because it appears it is not. also, your graphic page of http://woocommerce.com/woocommerce-1-year-old/ does not show up in older versions of firefox. so are there issues with your themes for my clients and their users that are using older FF versions like many people in the world?
the page is just blank!
Where does it appear that the prices aren’t discounted?
How about this?
http://woocommerce.com/extension/software-add-on/
It shows 52 on the extensions page and there but in the cart is 25… And it’s not the only one I found so…
For me it shows $53 in the cart: http://d.pr/i/SOyS/25Yt04x0
I’m showing the same thing as Anton. In cart it’s showing $35 for me. I even refreshed the cart a few times. Still $35. I’m using Chrome.
We can’t reproduce this here, but if you can get it for $35 instead of $52, then just go ahead and buy it.
Shows $35 in cart but….it also says that it’s the 2Checkout Form.
John, this often is a sign that you already own the extension. Our system won’t let you purchase one you already have. Email us and we can be for sure! – support[at]woocommerce.com
Also, there are some extensions where the prices increase by one dollar!!! What is happening guys? I’m on Firefox 15.0.1…
https://woocommerce.com/payment/checkout.php?product_id=479
This is a rounding error. The checkout price is the correct price.
Is the rounding error on the product page or the checkout page? I thought I was buying a plugin for $24 but was charged $25. 4 out of the 5 extensions I bought did add a dollar to the total and processed that amount to my CC. The fifth one processed at the amount shown on the product page.
Obviously enjoying the birthday bash! 🙂 Happy Birthday Ninjas!
I have just sent an email about bulk buying 50 extensions, from the email address given here (now shown in the content). Please let me know you have received this and get back to me asap, so I can give you a big wad of money 🙂
Thanks
I’m getting to all the emails now, Tai. 🙂
I am glad you were born Woocommerce!
Hi,
I have emailed a list of extensions that I want to buy since my credit card purchase is being denied now. I did buy the Canvas theme and the Google Checkout WC extension, but I want more to be grandfathered for unlimited use. The list is:
Per Product Shipping
Newsletter Subscription
Product to Media link
Product Enquiry Form
Bulk Stock Management
Sell License Keys for Software
-James
We’ll get to your email ASAP, James. Thanks for your patience!
Had to change card 10 times and gave up in the end. Thank god you are upgrading to woocommerce.
We’re glad we’re switching too. 😉
You could have contacted us to see what the issue was as well!
Well I know what the problem is. I use generated e-cards with limited lifetime and limit and after i buy more then one or two items it gets flaged for some reson. So I have been purchasing and rerolling cards like crazy hehe. Will work better when you get a cart. But this is also one of the administrative hurdles that makes me hate limited licenses and plugins with recuring costs so intence. The transaction cost is often higher then the price of the plugin itself.
Hi,
I have sent an email about multiple purchase of around 50 extensions, from the email address that I provide here. Appreciate if you could let me know that you have received this and please get back to me as soon as possible before this offer expire. 🙂
We’ll be with your email ASAP, and will be sure to get you in on the deal no matter what. 🙂
Hi there,
No getting much answers via support, so I am trying my « luck » right here.
If I get the smart coupon ext. — do i need the store credit ext.?
Yes or no please?
Thanks
I am also having problems purchasing extensions, I have sent an emaill to support@woocommerce.com listing the extensions I would like to purchase before the deadline.
Come on, this is getting ridiculous. Didn’t anyone at WOO see this coming?
After purchasing 3 extensions (with more to go), my transactions stopped going through.
I’ve changed my card 5 times already and still no luck. I’ve only got one VISA card and you don’t take Amex. I sent in a ticket a few hours ago and no answer yet.
I’m in Italy (+6 hours). I’m not going to stay up until the midnight deadline (6:00 AM for me) waiting for the transactions to go through. Any help would be appreciated.
I’ve responded to an email from you just a bit ago Sal. Sorry for the trouble, this is precisely why we’re switching to WooCommerce. 🙂
Thanks Ryan!
I appreciate it! In fact, I responded to it with just a couple of really quick questions.
Thanks again!
Greg,
If we’ve not already got to your email we will, and will definitely get you in on the sale!
Thanks Ryan. Thanks to your help, I’m all set now.
discount already expired? 🙁
No not yet, it runs until midnight, so another few hours still
there’s no discount applied… smart coupon is still at $35 🙁
I can’t see the discounts when trying to check out – have they expired?
Not just yet! – http://woocommerce.com/2012/09/woocommerce-turns-1-and-were-celebrating/#comment-141375 😉
Table Rate doesn’t reflect the discount – it actually adds a dollar!? I really want to sink my teeth into that extension..
Pete,
The price you see at checkout is the correct and already discounted price. There is a rounding error on the price you see before checkout. So sorry about that!
Ah! Thanks 🙂
I keep getting this: Oops! We have experienced an error processing your transaction. Please contact WooThemes Support for more details or alternatively try a different card.
Been trying since 6pm, it’s now 11:24pm. I have emailed info@woocommerce.com.
Good night.
I’ve sent a list by email of 30+ extensions to buy, but it’s very slow to get a response back.
I only managed to buy like three extensions on the site before I started getting the Oops error.
I sent an email Friday and am still waiting for a response. I went through a couple of cards before I gave up.
Hi Magnus,
I need PAY U India Payment Gateway Extension.
It is showing transaction declined. My card is all fine.
Please send me some link where I can buy this extension.
Hi, could you e-mail us at info[at]woocommerce.com so we can help you with your purchase?
What a pity I miss this special from WooThemes 🙁 . Wish I’ll lucky later